Countdown to Intercon I, RPG Reading

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

T-28 days to run time of Presque Vue. As usual, a) we're where I'd have liked for us to be about a month ago, but b) the game will run. Jamais Vue is written.

I've got my characters for two of the three larps I'm in, and one's a hoard larp, so I'm not sure if I actually get a character sheet. I love both of the characters I've received.

Meanwhile, I'm bouncing from rpg to rpg book. You know the memes about reading 50 or a hundred books a year? This gets more complicated when one figures in rpgs. They can take a lot longer to read. Or not. So, currently, begun-but-not-finished rpg books include:

Mouseguard. I'm actually getting to the crunchy stuff that makes it tick.

The Shackled City. I'm up to the third adventure. I really should read it faster to see what I can steal for a Cthulhupunk (my world, not SJG's GURPS Cthulhupunk) adventure I've promised ebartley and mnemex.

Legend of the Five Rings, 3rd edition. I'm sighing over this because, despite some of the flaws of 1st ed, it was a very solid game, with a good background section and an excellent adventure (apart from some issues I discussed in my review of it). Third edition -- the timeline skimps on some of the Really Useful Background that gives the feel of the world, and tosses a lot of events at people in the timeline, which is one of the first sections. I had a wee bit of trouble following the timeline. And the reason I only had a wee bit of trouble is that I've been following this world for years. What newbies make of it, I don't know.

Also, because of the weight of history, well, a) a lot of the Cool Events have been played out, and not by the PCs, which, admittedly, can be dealt with by setting things earlier, but b) the timeline just stops. 1st edition, and I think 2nd, both stop at a point where the land is stable enough to have a flavor.

I still think AEG was brilliant by accident with 1st edition, setting the default year to seven years before the climactic events determined by their major CCG tournaments, and didn't realize what this meant for players and GMs and why this should be preserved.

Fortunately, I have, I think, most of the sourcebooks updating me one the major events in more comprehensible detail. I'm not sure where the events leading up to the Spider clan's creation are, as it does not exist in 3rd ed, but does in Emerald Empire, and I am not going to buy 3rd edition revised! That's just heinous. I don't know if there's a way to get the material in the revised third edition, or if I already have it scattered amongst the other books I own.

Edge of Midnight. So far, I'm noting two things. The what-is-going-on section, about which I've read the spoilered rpg.net review, struck me as, well, silly. As in, I could come up with better explanations if you woke me from deep rem sleep and asked what should be going on, better than the official one and all the listed variants. But, it occurs to me that, deliberately or not, this is an aid to GMs who want to change what's-going-on, since the default assumption is such that ditching it doesn't hurt anything. I wonder if that's deliberate, though I doubt it.

The stats have me groaning, and I'll do a separate post on those.

Countdown to Intercon I, RPG Reading

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

T-28 days to run time of Presque Vue. As usual, a) we're where I'd have liked for us to be about a month ago, but b) the game will run. Jamais Vue is written.

I've got my characters for two of the three larps I'm in, and one's a hoard larp, so I'm not sure if I actually get a character sheet. I love both of the characters I've received.

Meanwhile, I'm bouncing from rpg to rpg book. You know the memes about reading 50 or a hundred books a year? This gets more complicated when one figures in rpgs. They can take a lot longer to read. Or not. So, currently, begun-but-not-finished rpg books include:

Mouseguard. I'm actually getting to the crunchy stuff that makes it tick.

The Shackled City. I'm up to the third adventure. I really should read it faster to see what I can steal for a Cthulhupunk (my world, not SJG's GURPS Cthulhupunk) adventure I've promised ebartley and mnemex.

Legend of the Five Rings, 3rd edition. I'm sighing over this because, despite some of the flaws of 1st ed, it was a very solid game, with a good background section and an excellent adventure (apart from some issues I discussed in my review of it). Third edition -- the timeline skimps on some of the Really Useful Background that gives the feel of the world, and tosses a lot of events at people in the timeline, which is one of the first sections. I had a wee bit of trouble following the timeline. And the reason I only had a wee bit of trouble is that I've been following this world for years. What newbies make of it, I don't know.

Also, because of the weight of history, well, a) a lot of the Cool Events have been played out, and not by the PCs, which, admittedly, can be dealt with by setting things earlier, but b) the timeline just stops. 1st edition, and I think 2nd, both stop at a point where the land is stable enough to have a flavor.

I still think AEG was brilliant by accident with 1st edition, setting the default year to seven years before the climactic events determined by their major CCG tournaments, and didn't realize what this meant for players and GMs and why this should be preserved.

Fortunately, I have, I think, most of the sourcebooks updating me one the major events in more comprehensible detail. I'm not sure where the events leading up to the Spider clan's creation are, as it does not exist in 3rd ed, but does in Emerald Empire, and I am not going to buy 3rd edition revised! That's just heinous. I don't know if there's a way to get the material in the revised third edition, or if I already have it scattered amongst the other books I own.

Edge of Midnight. So far, I'm noting two things. The what-is-going-on section, about which I've read the spoilered rpg.net review, struck me as, well, silly. As in, I could come up with better explanations if you woke me from deep rem sleep and asked what should be going on, better than the official one and all the listed variants. But, it occurs to me that, deliberately or not, this is an aid to GMs who want to change what's-going-on, since the default assumption is such that ditching it doesn't hurt anything. I wonder if that's deliberate, though I doubt it.

The stats have me groaning, and I'll do a separate post on those.

Guess That Attribute!

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Edge of Midnight has six stats, attributes, whatever you want to call them. I am listing them here and looking for folks to guess what they represent. Anyone who already knows (such as those who've read the book or played the game) are disqualified from guessing. The stats are:

Brains
Brawn
Build
Guts
Moxie
Smoothness

Guess That Attribute!

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Edge of Midnight has six stats, attributes, whatever you want to call them. I am listing them here and looking for folks to guess what they represent. Anyone who already knows (such as those who've read the book or played the game) are disqualified from guessing. The stats are:

Brains
Brawn
Build
Guts
Moxie
Smoothness